Headlines, Human Rights, Latin America & the Caribbean, North America

CUBA: Human Rights Record Under Scrutiny Once Again

Patricia Grogg

HAVANA, Mar 9 2006 (IPS) - The criticism of Cuba contained in the U.S. State Department’s annual human rights report serves as a prelude to diplomatic confrontations that will undoubtedly crop up again in the last period of sessions of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights.

The Commission, which will begin to meet in Geneva on Monday, is to be replaced in the future by a Human Rights Council, which has not yet been approved by the United Nations.

As part of an even stronger offensive than in previous years, the head of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana, Michael Parmly, presented the State Department report’s chapter on Cuba to the foreign press on Wednesday.

But in response to a question by IPS as to whether the United States plans on presenting or co-sponsoring a motion against Cuba in the Commission’s sessions in Geneva, he said “That is up to Washington. I don’t know. What I do know is that we want the international bodies to pay attention to rights violations wherever they occur around the world.”

The report accuses the government of Fidel Castro of controlling “all aspects of life through the Communist Party and its affiliated mass organisations, the government bureaucracy, and the state security apparatus.”

It also criticises the “denial of citizens’ rights to change their government”, and reports the “arbitrary arrest and detention of human rights advocates and members of independent professional organisations”, “refusal to recognise domestic human rights groups or to permit them to function legally”, “denial of fair trial, particularly to political prisoners”, “interference with privacy, including pervasive monitoring of private communications”, and “severe limitations on freedom of speech and press”.

It further states that as of late 2005, at least 333 political prisoners and detainees were imprisoned in Cuba, a figure that coincides with the one reported early this year by the Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation, a dissident group that is tolerated to some extent by the government.

The countries criticised by the State Department report include Venezuela, whose left-leaning president, Hugo Chávez, has close ties with Cuba and an antagonistic relationship with Washington.

But the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) called on the administration of George W. Bush “to put its own house in order” before condemning human rights violations by other countries.

Although the group recognised that the State Department reports “credibly document serious human rights violations in countries such as Colombia, Mexico and Guatemala,” it urged Washington to “uncategorically renounce those practices that have left U.S. credibility in tatters globally (including detainee abuse, secret prisons and torture).”

“Through its own actions, the U.S. no longer has the moral authority crucial to the defence of human rights,” WOLA Executive Director Joy Olson said Wednesday.

Meanwhile, French magistrate Christine Chanet, the United Nations’ special envoy for Cuba, recently declared that she was “alarmed at the allegations of ill-treatment in detention” submitted by the families of political prisoners, which indicated that “”Food and hygiene are substandard and medical care either unavailable or inappropriate.”

In 2002, Chanet was given the mission to investigate and report on the human rights situation in Cuba. However, the Cuban government does not recognise her mandate, and therefore has denied her the right to visit the island.

Chanet noted that 60 of nearly 80 opponents of the government arrested in early 2003 remain in prison, and that more people were arrested in 2005 for expressing dissident political views.

In addition, she expressed concern over the expulsion of several European journalists and parliamentarians in May 2005.

But her report recognises positive developments in terms of economic, social and cultural rights, particularly in the areas of education and health, despite the effects of the U.S. embargo against Cuba.

“It is impossible to ignore the disastrous and lasting economic and social effects – compounded in 2004 – of the embargo imposed on the Cuban population over 40 years ago, as well as its impacts on civil and political rights,” she added.

She also stated that “The extreme tension between Cuba and the United States of America has created a climate which is far from conducive to the development of freedom of expression and freedom of assembly.”

When asked to comment on Chanet’s report, Parmly said he respected her opinion, and that he wished she would be allowed to visit Cuba, where he would be pleased to meet with her.

The 2005 resolution against Cuba approved by a 21-17 vote with 15 abstentions in the U.N. Commission on Human Rights was co-sponsored by Australia, Canada, Finland, France, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Romania and the United Kingdom.

But a resolution presented by Cuba calling for an investigation into the conditions in which “terrorist suspects” are imprisoned at the U.S. naval base in Guantánamo, in eastern Cuba, did not prosper.

Every year since 1990, the U.N. Commission has approved resolutions censuring Cuba for failing to respect human rights, with the exception of 1998, when Washington submitted the motion on its own.

But the Commission has lost credibility due to the scant concrete results achieved by its resolutions on the human rights records of different nations, the pressure on countries when it comes time to vote, and the politicisation of its debates.

Havana agrees on the need to reform the U.N. human rights body. “For us it is essential to put an end to it, because of the state of things, the manipulation and the way it is used against countries of the developing South,” a Foreign Ministry official told IPS.